New features

The new version of the app has the following new features:

  • More marble colors
  • Two extra card decks: poker and Keezen
  • Multiple card back selections
  • Board selections: wood, light or dark
  • Multiple robot players
  • Improved board layout for iPhones
  • Store and resume current game
  • Option to play without ads
  • Tap a marble to show free path length and field counter
  • Shuffle with more advanced random
  • Preparations for a future multiplayer version
Start a new game screen. Tap fields or marbles to change the player color, tap a robot to change the game play, tap the cards to change front and back.

These were the most requested features of all received feed-back. The most requested feature was to be able to play with other people. This multiplayer feature will be in a near future release.

There were complaints about manipulation of the game-play. Apparently, some players suspect that the robots get the better cards. Of course the game-play is not manipulated. To decrease the chance on recurring patterns, the new app version uses a more sophisticated shuffle function (for those interested: Mersenne Twister algorithm). Also, the start player is a random player now. Hopefully, this will reduce the suspicions of game-play manipulation.

The robot players are:

Silly: plays without a plan. Normally you will win easily.
Weak: has a plan, but does not always stick to it.
Reasonable: plays quite well. Not easy to beat.
Nasty: plays like Reasonable, with less eye for the teammate.

Of course, the robot players are fair and have the same information as human players. In general, they have a better memory of already played cards and have more trouble recognizing patterns than humans.